


I Must Love What I Destroy And Destroy The Thing I Love

by TheOriginalSilvertongue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Magic, Evil Odin (Marvel), Gen, Loki Posing as Odin, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Pre-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, loki is a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 01:17:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18377972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOriginalSilvertongue/pseuds/TheOriginalSilvertongue
Summary: AU set between Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok. After defeating a dark magic-tainted Odin on Midgard, Loki and Thor must return to Asgard and work together to clean up the mess their father left. It's harder than it sounds.





	I Must Love What I Destroy And Destroy The Thing I Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by [**"Moon Over Bourbon Street"**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqN5_RN5Jx0) by Sting.

“Brother.” Thor’s voice sounded distant, distorted, as if he was speaking from a chasm and the syllables bounced like pebbles between sheer, flinty rock faces. “Enough.” 

They were the only two words spoken between the princes of Asgard for days. While Loki toiled to cleanse Odin of the dark magic that contaminated him, Thor was his sentinel. Dark magic was too easy to fall into and lose oneself as Odin’s descent into madness illustrated. Not even the Allfather of the Nine Realms could resist its lure in time. The only way for Loki to avoid an identical fate while handling that same magic was to ensure he had a trusted lifeline. Trust was no easy thing for Loki, but Thor always had made a fine anchor. Sometimes that anchor felt more like a stone around Loki’s neck or an avalanche dragging him down a mountainside, but now Loki welcomed it. Though not at first. It was still a battle each time; the skirmishes were just getting smaller and quicker. 

“Loki!” Thor’s voice became louder, spiraling through the dark mist and coalescing into something like a mental shove. Thor didn’t dare lay an actual hand upon him. “Enough!” 

Loki lingered a moment longer, basking in the power that flowed through him, then bound the tome from which he’d been working within _sá einnin skokkr_ , “the empty box”, the safe space Norse practitioners of seiðr used to protect themselves and those around them from errant magic. 

Hollowed out by the exercise, Loki felt like a crushed reed after these sessions, splintered and sagging in a wind in which it used to dance. The exhaustion hit him only a few breaths after breaking the link anymore after so many forays into that forbidden art. Each time was the same: Loki worked as long as he could bear without injury to himself, Odin, or the surroundings. Thor acted as their safety mechanism. Loki would now need to rest before cleansing himself, only to start the same steps over. He chose to jump into muddy water only to bathe away the mud and then jump in yet again. 

Unlike with drink, repeated exposure to the dark magic made one more susceptible to it, rather than building an immunity. These cleansings were critical if they were to rid Asgard of this infection. They used the same process on Odin himself, the sessions alternating so he could also recover, still in quarantine. Of all in Asgard, only Eir, healer and friend of the fallen Queen Frigga, knew the truth of his condition. For the good of the realm, it was best kept that way. 

It sounded smoother in theory than it went in practice. The nature of dark magic was addictive; the more power one gained, the more they desired. Loki supposed all power was like that in some sense, but this was the difference between knowing the taste of a lemon and having the juice dripped on your tongue. The sting of the acid was always sharper in presence than in memory. Compared to other magics and other powers Loki had encountered, only the Infinity Gems had any comparison in his mind. There were forces outside of the realm of magic, things that were not strictly considered ‘power’ that influenced the strength of its lure and the ability of its hold, however quantifying things like love and loyalty were beyond even his ability. Loki was, perhaps, less adept at that particular thing than those around him.

There were arguments, bickering. Loki never wanted to stop. The first few times, it had required physical intervention on Thor’s part to rip his brother from the link with the dark magic. The act was appreciated after the fact, however both had suffered the consequences. Loki warned Thor yet again how he too could be contaminated while the link was open and not to touch Loki until the cleansing rituals were completed afterwards. Loki’d been forced to cleanse them both every time there had been contact, thus further slowing their progress. Another way of breaking the connection hadn’t presented itself though and when it became necessary again, Thor did the same thing over again until he didn’t have to anymore.

It had been a learning process for both of them and not without its share of false starts and stumbles. It still was far from perfected. Odin was no help; he couldn’t be trusted to provide accurate or complete information in this any more than he could be about anything else. Especially not in this, in fact. While he spoke of regret, even apologized – much to Loki’s surprise and Thor’s apparent disgust – Odin was still infested with the taint of the very thing they sought his help in eradicating. It was a conflict of interest they could not allow to undermine their effort. They took anything he offered with great caution and only put it to use after careful testing and verification. Even then, success was varying.

During this entire process, Odin had to remain quarantined. He could not be allowed to contaminate anything more in Asgard, nor could they trust him unsupervised. It was a strange reversal of parent and child, jailer and prisoner, king and his sworn vassals. Under any other circumstances, what Loki and Thor were doing was beyond treason. There were times with Odin when the darkness returned and reminded them both of that fact with threats and howled insults. On those days, Loki never slept. That voice, those words – they slipped into his psyche with far too much ease to allow them to settle there. He had to distract himself with further work though he could do more with the dark magic after those sessions. The limitation was frustrating. 

It was at those times Loki most often took on his other main duty during this period: ensuring that Odin was still seen to be ruling Asgard. Since he could use his illusion magic with no ill effect, this was not difficult. Loki, disguised as Odin, carried on much of the Allfather’s regular business. He held audiences, attended Council meetings, made sure he was seen moving about the palace and engaging in normal activities for the Allfather. There was precious little time for rest though Thor hounded Loki about it whenever the chance arose. Eventually, Loki succumbed, sleeping off a full day or more before rising to do it all over again. 

This was their life for months. 

The day finally came when Loki felt he could do no more for Odin. He had cast the binding the past four times with no success, finding no dark magic within the Allfather with which to bind. The cleansing process was strange math, an ever shifting arrangement of inverse relationships, much like Odin and Loki’s own relationship or how Loki and Thor had been groomed to oppose each other in both inclination and ability, if not in actuality. The more Loki worked with the dark magic, the more ease with which he attuned to it. It made detection and binding easier, but his will to do so weaker. With each cleansing, the amount of contamination within Odin decreased, making it harder to detect by any with a lesser ability. Nowhere better in recent memory (despite Loki’s gaps therein) was there a better example of ‘necessary evil’ than in this process. To cleanse Odin, Loki himself had to become tainted. To protect the people from this knowledge, they had to be deceived. 

Mistrust of dark magic was a prejudice strongly held and well earned among all the Nine Realms. Even Midgard, who barely even believed in magic anymore, still preserved in their legends tales of the dangers of dark influence. Most times, they ended up twisted into tales unrecognizable to their original source, but the message remained the same: beware the allure of comely wickedness; beware of power which tasted too sweet, offered too much, and seemingly asked nothing of value in return. All magic had a price and the dark would take everything you had to give, then reach out through you to take even more. Those given over to it were no longer themselves. They weren’t even autonomous beings anymore, they were mere conduits for the magic itself, as greedy as a black hole, consuming everything within reach before extending its influence further to lure in more upon which to feed. Loki had never encountered such a creature, but he found plenty of reference to them in Odin’s secret treatises and tomes. Just as the dark elves had sought to return the universe to the primeval abyss of darkness from which nothing escaped, so the core essence of dark magic sought to consume all.

Thor did not fully comprehend the danger of that with which they tampered, Loki made sure of that. If Thor knew, he might never trust Odin or Loki ever again. He might even have been right to not do so. Unable to regain that trust, what choice would Thor have then but to imprison them both and take the throne himself? Loki felt forced to give his brother hope, not only for his own sake, but for Asgard’s. A broken prince bearing an unwanted crown would do Asgard and the Nine Realms no favors. 

When it came time to dispose of the collection Odin spent millennia curating in secret, including artifacts, scrolls, books, and other dark magic references, Loki needed this trust intact. Amassing all of Odin’s materials into the same hidden room in which they’d burned Frigga’s remains, Loki called once again upon his and Thor’s joint abilities to destroy the items. Loki directed the fire, augmented it with magic, and Thor whipped it into a vortex, empowering it with speed and strength. At the end, there wasn’t even ash left to show, just black char marks coating the walls and streaking up the ceiling. The cleansing was complete. Asgard was free of the influence and presence of dark magic.

Or so Loki said.

That wasn’t entirely true. After all their work, after all he’d learned, Loki couldn’t bear to just destroy the knowledge they’d all suffered to gain. It was best if nobody knew the collection still existed, best if it was thought to be destroyed. That way no one would be tempted to try to find it again. Loki hid everything away in a pocket dimension, banishing the items one by one after cloning an illusion of them onto an ordinary item which was later burned. He told Thor that only he could touch these items for fear of contamination. They were the same precautions he’d been taking all along, so his brother did not question them. 

It was Loki himself who bore each item to the burning site.   
It was Loki himself who piled them atop each other into a tidy pyre.   
It was Loki himself who first set them aflame. 

He even shed a tear for their loss, or so it may have appeared to Thor. Loki had been thinking of their mother in this very room, a room he’d been more than happy to grant Thor leave to destroy after they’d finished. Loki never wanted to see that room again either. But intentions were slippery things, nobody knew this better than the God of Mischief. He didn’t intend to use any of Odin’s materials, he truly didn’t. But if it became necessary… he’d be a fool not to have access to them. What those circumstances might be under which they became needed, Loki couldn’t imagine but the limitations of his own imagination at the moment was no predictor of the future. Oracular sight was not Loki’s gift, never had been. Simply because he couldn’t foresee the situation in which he might need this knowledge didn’t mean such a need could not arise. He’d managed to resist the lure of the dark magic this long and in such proximity to it. Now that the things were banished, it would be easier. He would not be tempted, he told himself. Out of sight, out of mind until such time came as they were necessary to recall. He hoped with a rare sincerity that they would never behold that day. As a seal upon the banishment, a guarantee of his own good intentions, Loki stamped the permission of his brother. It would be necessary to unlock the seal and recall the banished collection, should Loki ever desire to do so. Without Thor’s complicity in the action, it could not be done. Loki knew he was hobbling himself, knew he and Thor many times disagreed on what the proper thing to do was or the proper time at which to use it might be, but Loki could think of no better counterbalance against which to place the weight of his own will. It was ingrained into them both, the halves of Asgard’s whole, the sun and the moon, the sons of Odin, dark and light. In this, as in everything else, they were locked together.

After making his final appearance as Odin, Loki rejoined his brother in the quarters in which the real Odin was sequestered. After each appearance, Loki conveyed every detail of what had happened to the King of Asgard so that he would be able to step back into his role without so much as a hesitation. This last audience had been nothing special. Loki, however, had an additional warning for their father.

“You must never again touch even the merest thread of dark magic,” Loki advised as Thor looked on with a scowl. “Even though you are now cleansed, after such exposure you remain weak against its lure. You have been entrapped by it before. You must never again allow it anywhere near you, not even to attempt to free others from it. All you learned from it, you must forget. All it promised you, you must relinquish.” The warning was a dire one and Loki’s face reflected that.

Odin nodded, hands balled into fists in his lap as his eye moved from one son to the other and then back. He did not protest, nor did he speak at all. Loki wondered whether this was due to agreement or whether Odin was just biting his tongue. Sometimes saying nothing at all was louder than any words would be. After all of the bickering, insults, disagreements, and resistance of the previous months, this was suspect.

“Next time-” Loki started, but Thor interrupted.

“There can be no next time!”

Nodding in agreement and holding up a hand to appease his brother’s anger, Loki tried again. “If there is a next time-” 

Thor took Loki’s offered hand, but once again, Thor did not allow his brother to finish.

“Next time,” Thor promised, glaring into his father’s face with a countenance that warranted thunder as surely as a darkening sky. “I _will_ kill you.”

His hand enclosed in Thor’s firm, trusting grip, Loki couldn’t bear to shatter this solidarity with the confession that he suspected that he was vulnerable now as well. Next time, if there was a next time, perhaps Thor would have to kill Loki too.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, feedback, concrit welcome!
> 
> Accompanying artwork:


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